


terrible sting, terrible storm

by koroleyva



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, NO i dont know how to write endings and it SHOWS, and i felt like sharing, first post...big f, i just like them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 01:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19075159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koroleyva/pseuds/koroleyva
Summary: A certain Gangrel scholar is back in town. Fourteen years after he left her at the hands of the Sabbat in Egypt, Cassandra doesn’t intend to visit him – until she finds herself at his door.





	1. palisades, palisades

**Author's Note:**

> hi! if this seems a little context-less, for some it is! i was going to publish this on tumblr (where most of their info is), but it's much too long, and i thought i'd give ao3 a whirl! i'm @koroleyva on tumblr, feel free to shoot me a message anytime!

It is raining in Los Angeles.

Cassandra doesn’t feel it anymore, nearly thirty years dead, but the romanticism of the drops falling on her skin as she steps out of her haven pleases her deeply. New Year’s Eve – revelers tumble along the streets of Santa Monica with laughter under their tongues even as it pours. She used to love it, too, as a mortal and a younger Kindred, but no matter the persuasion age changes a creature. Champagne simply doesn’t taste the same through a siphon of blood. 

She doesn’t really know what she’s doing out so late. The rain wets her hair to her cheeks as she makes her way down the sidewalk through the partygoers headed home, not all that hungry for a mouthful of drugs and stale alcohol. She turns heads anyway – why wouldn’t she? A pretty little blonde in velvet heels and a silk dress walking alone in the rain; at first glance no one would know she’s as sober as a Cardinal, maybe just some lost girl torn from her friends. The whole scene is romantic lit in pink neon from the indiscreet newly installed sex shop down the block from her place – maybe someone tries to catcall her from across the street, but Cassandra isn’t listening. 

LaCroix’s email to her was downright evil. _I hear Beckett is back in the district, Lowe. Perhaps keep an eye out for him down by the docks._ Like the bitchy Ventrue he is, even smothered from his pedestal he’s still eternally riding her ass. Where does he even hear this stuff? The Nosferatu turned belly-up to the Anarchs after the Camarilla got run out by those two fledglings. Would they still feed info to their failed prince?

Better not to worry about it. It’s not a night for politics – even the customary Brujah watchdog Rodriguez has taken a shine to having follow Cassandra isn’t around. Let him leave, let the whole fucking Anarch state fail. Cass spreads her arms to the rain – _it’s New Year’s Eve, baby!_ Time for mistakes and ill begotten forgiveness caught under her tongue.

Oh, Beckett. When did she see him last? Their most recent conversation was a clandestine call to his burner phone in the morning after a terrible dream – but no, when did she last touch his skin? A few weeks back when he led her on a wild goose chase into Hollywood on some ridiculous notion that there was a spy within Isaac’s ranks. It was really just a glance of her fingers over the back of his hand but it had felt so _good_. As if she had spent the last century in torpor and found her only succor.

Perhaps she had. Cassandra wipes her sunglasses as she stumbles over her own feet in another puddle. Her whole body is liquid at his point – water drips down her cheeks and neck, falling into the hollow of her collarbones and sticking the pretty French silk to her skin. The cold sting of the rain is nothing compared to the ache dwelling beneath her ribs. It’s a permanent fixture by now, has been since Beckett threw her to the wolves with nothing short of misery on his face. At once and for several years it had been betrayal, anger. She was _furious_ with Beckett for being so willing to sacrifice her for his own gain; more than that she was terrified and hurt. How could he? How _dare_ he? Questions that were never answered. Maybe never will be.

But that ache has remained and it sits inside her like a stone – uncomfortably and uneasily. She smooths her hair back from her face as she makes it to the long row of warehouses that constitute Santa Monica’s “vast” shipping district. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, if it hadn’t already been painfully obvious. Stumbling from her haven in the pouring rain to see a man she will end up arguing with, spitting at, and then returning home in a huff seems counterproductive to what she planned on that night, but it sure beats watching the ball drop alone.

The rain soaked dress, the ruined heels, the impending feeling like she’s going to vomit the closer she gets to the warehouse Beckett is inevitably holed up in working on whatever ridiculous project is keeping him in Los Angeles. The ache beneath her ribs blooms heavier as she comes to the warehouse’s door. It’s a run-down little place that groans beneath the weight of the rain; it’s not fit for holding cargo, let alone a Gangrel scholar with centuries of old tomes tucked under his arms. Cass scoffs to herself. Leave it to Beckett to say he’ll “manage” -- managing to him is sleeping in the corner of a run-down warehouse with his books stacked up beneath his jacket. _Idiot_. 

Out of the direct pounding of rain under the awning, she feels how the silk of her dress sticks to her and the idea of how utterly ridiculous she must appear seems to pass without consequence. She’s already behaving like a fool tonight, may as well look the part. 

Thunder cracks in the distance and the rain screams down harder. Cass is thankful for it -- it masks the sound of her knock on the rickety metal door. It seems to remove her from the moment; it’s not her who slammed her fist into the door, no, but some other person who is stupid enough to go crawling back to the one man who has put her through the most hell. _Foolish_ , she tells herself as she knocks again and again, feeling as if she were driven by some singular need to see Beckett’s face. 

Why? To scream at him, perhaps, or blame him for the state of her precious outfit, for the _state_ she’s in! The Gangrel has been hounding her poor thoughts since their brush in Hollywood and he needs to _answer_ for his crimes!

The excuse feels as good as any other under her tongue. The Toreador charges up the venom the longer she waits in the flood -- she prepares to be furious, to scream at him, to spit in his face and shake him until he agrees to leave Los Angeles as soon as possible. She can’t _live_ when he’s here -- she sees him in every nightclub and around every corner, tastes him in the mouth of the newest Kine infatuation she drags into an alley to take her mind off of the world. Water drips over Cass’s face as it contorts in annoyance. She _aches_ with the thought of him and it makes her angry enough to be _sick_. Cass raises her fist once more to punch a hole in the metal - 

“Cassandra.” And the curled fist lands weakly against Beckett’s broad chest, fingers loosening immediately upon contact with the unstarched shirt. “Good evening.”  
  
Being vampires, of course they remain the same. Beckett still looks the same as he had in 1993, as in 2004, but _God_ if it doesn’t seem like this is the first time she’s ever seen his face. The curl of his lips as he speaks, the flash of his eyes behind the blackened lenses of his sunglasses, right down to the smattering of freckles across his nose that not even two centuries could banish and the once-broken set of his aquiline nose. Her wet hand creates marks on the front of his shirt -- he places his hand over hers after a moment of consideration. “Aren’t we lucky Kindred can’t catch cold?” She wonders how she looks; disheveled, drenched, eyes wide as dinner plates with the odd warmth his palm radiates over her hand. As if the world had before been in cottony black and white and was now in full technicolor the moment he placed his hand upon hers, spoke her name. 

Ridiculous. Unfounded. _Buffoonery_. Cass clears her throat. “Beckett. I was told you were in Los Angeles.” Water runs in little rivulets down her neck as she works through the words, turning her hand over in his to press palm-to-palm. Suddenly, she’s not all that concerned with the poison she had been cooking up for this exchange. 

The ache beneath her ribs seems to have lifted the moment Beckett met her eyes -- dislodged like a rock from a child’s shoe. It sits in the pit of her stomach but it’s not an unpleasant feeling, no, not where she can examine it clearly as Beckett leads her by the hand into the stale-smelling warehouse. Not anger or hate, but something else she doesn’t have a name for. Not yet.


	2. i can wait, i can wait

It doesn’t look as terrible on the inside as it does out. A small, round table laden with books looks out of place amongst the mostly empty crates and shelves -- two chairs, one adorned with Beckett’s beloved coat and satchel and the other with a fine looking velvet cushion, welcomed her quietly. There’s a bed, too, but poorly made and untended to, as if Beckett slept much to begin with. His hand creeps up to her elbow to help her sit in the free chair. “Is that so? By whom?” 

She offers a halfhearted shrug in return. Beckett retrieves his jacket to toss around her shoulders, though they both know the cold is no problem for their kind. Cass pulls it to, the shoulders much too big for her smaller frame. She could have sworn the jacket has gotten bigger since she last slipped into it a decade back. Perhaps she’s just waned since they last met. “Tung. Said he saw you creeping about.” A lie, and they both know it, but Beckett conceals the uptick of his brow with a duck of his head. He kneels by her feet, lifting her waterlogged velvet heel up to rest on his knee as his clawed fingers work on the tiny latch that keep the pathetic things tethered to her aching feet. “You’ve never been good at being discreet.”

“Who says I was trying to be?” The Gangrel combats. “Why did you come here, Cassandra? In the pouring rain no less.” 

Cassandra clears her throat again. As if it would protect her, she sinks deeper into the jacket about her shoulders, hoping the scent of old books and older cologne could keep Beckett’s eyes off of her. It’s a failure, of course, because she speaks from her fortress of brown leather a soft “I don’t know.”

It’s true. She _doesn’t_. Her presence is as much a mystery as the quirk of his lips; the poison has all but been swallowed back, shifting to the murky pink of sweetness as if she couldn’t bear to be cruel to him. The Toreador wants him to answer for his crimes against her -- for always being on her mind, for hurting her in the past, for _everything_ he’s ever done, right down to the delicate press of his terrifying talons on her leg. But is that why she came? There is no explanation for her presence in truth. Those are her comforting lies -- ones Beckett would never believe. She had come to be disappointed, not to have him kneel at her feet and wrap her in his jacket. 

“Unusual of you to admit defeat.” Beckett chuckles. It’s a low, rumbling sound that mimics the storm outside. That dislodged aching looks funny now, in her mind’s eye. As if she’s just been able to identify what’s been plaguing her for the last fourteen years -- the wrath and spite has eroded away to reveal what’s beneath. _Longing_. Mistaken for too long as something blackened and hateful, it has ceased to hurt, that hole closed up by the fingers wrapped around her ankle, the claws entangled in the flimsy plastic straps. She ached with _yearning_ all those years. 

Yes, she was angry once, and she could be furious again if she so desired, but the Toreador clenches her fingers tighter around the edges of the jacket. Exposed like a nerve the realizations won’t cease -- Cassandra missed Beckett, despite all of her rage and betrayal. How could she not? A decade of adoration doesn’t fade when they were the most important years of her unlife; silly of her to think she could smother her feelings in assuming this desire was simply for Kine, for blood, for a new muse. Cass had drenched herself in fine things to make the pain go away - from the ruined silk dress she sits in to the lavish chaise lounges she purchased from France - but the cure was freely given if she had simply opened her eyes. 

That fourteen years of _ache_ lifts with the upturn of his lips as he releases her ankles from the velvet death traps she’ll have to get rid of after tonight. Like a fool, hers quirk, too.

“I agree.” She mumbles once more, her head in the storm clouds above. “Unusual indeed.”

Beckett remains kneeling for a moment more, his eyes travelling up her leg to the waterlogged hem of her silk dress, further even still up to her face. Behind his sunglasses his eyes burn -- Cass realizes belatedly that she has taken off her own, resting on her lap between them. The rosy lenses reflect the sharp cut of his jaw as it works over a thought. He looks rather like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, instead rising to his feet. Cass watches with interest. He puts her heels beside the spare chair his jacket had occupied and wipes his hands off on his well-worn slacks. 

It gives Cass an opportunity to examine her former lover without his stare upon her -- a new-ish silk blend button down tucked into pants she suspects are from the late 70’s with their war-torn appearance, positively _ancient_ suspenders holding the poor slacks up, and the same scuffed up boots he’s not replaced since the late 19th century. His hair has been messily pushed out of his face with a half-assed attempt at a ponytail, and considerably shorter than the last time they’d met. Chopped to about his mid-back, perhaps an encounter with a fiend whilst he was searching in the sewers for whatever _ridiculous_ lead he’s picked up.

Her first thought is _despicable_ , and her second is a rushed, impossibly quiet _how could I have ever hated you?_

He’s so familiar it makes her buzz to her very core. His every movement stirs up nostalgia and a fresh wave of clarity over her drowned mind -- Beckett uncorks a tall bottle and retrieves two wine glasses from underneath the small table. He need not ask if she wants a drink, because he knows her, knows how much to fill the wine glass before offering it. Cass allows herself a shuddery sigh as their fingers brush when he hands over the glass. Neither of them can really speak -- it seems inappropriate, now. He takes a seat across from her in the spare chair.

Beckett raises his cup. Cassandra leans forward to clink the rims together.

The blood is rich and sweet -- not Beckett’s favorite, but _hers_. If he continues to be so considerate she might have to hurt him. How is this allowed? He can’t just _behave_ like this! Perhaps he’d picked up a romance tip or two from Lucita. Or maybe…

_ No.  _ He couldn’t have. Would he? Cass knows Beckett to be plenty capable of emotion - as stubborn as it is to pull from him - but would he ache like her? _Could he?_ Questions that are almost answered as he removes his sunglasses and retrieves hers from her lap, placing them atop the stack of books nearest to him. So this is their game, then, a nostalgic practice in vulnerability. When he looks at her once more his smirk almost reaches the unnatural brightness of his eyes. Cass has painted hundreds of pieces because of the Gangrel before her -- his eyes the most frequent subject, captivating and consuming all in one. Churning like lava but never, _ever_ unkind when they alight upon her. 

The moments pass in silence. Outside, the rain steadily weakens, but the thunder persists in a way that causes Cassandra to sink a bit lower into the jacket about her shoulders. Now that the warmth has set in, the wet dress has become doubly as uncomfortable as when she put it on. Cassandra swallows her mouthful of blood, going to speak, but Beckett begins before she can.

“The rain appears to have let up.” He states contemplatively, leaning back in the chair. Some hair falls across his forehead from the half ponytail -- Cass itches to spring from her chair and brush it behind his ear, but she resists, instead steeling herself for the request to leave. _He has work to do_. Perhaps she was foolish to come here all along -- the Toreador forgets often that the world does not revolve around her. The dual crisis of _I don’t want to leave_ and _I’ll go before you tell me to_ suddenly seizes her, driving her to her feet. She could walk back to her haven barefoot, it’s not like she’s not done it before! Cassandra Lowe would not be _told_ to go.

Beckett watches her frantic movement, lips pressed to the rim of his wine glass. _Is he smiling?_ No, he’s annoyed with her. His pleased and annoyed face are dreadfully the same. “But sunrise is soon. Would you like something to wear while your dress dries? It must be uncomfortable.”

_ Oh _ . They’ve done this before -- Berlin, 1997. The worst storm of the year, his fingers in her hair, a laugh and half a carafe of blood shared between them while their clothes dried on the heater in their hotel room. _Is this his attempt at a...reconciliation?_ No - yes - perhaps. Cass has been on quite the tailspin this evening. 

The Toreador blinks once, twice. “Yes, I would.” She sits back down as Beckett rises in her place, moving to the suitcase thrown haphazardly onto the bed. Cass would have liked to look around the warehouse a bit more - perhaps take stock of what books he had dragged with him - but she simply couldn’t take her eyes off him. In his presence she no longer aches with anything but the desire to kiss him. A foolish and girly thing, but Cassandra has never claimed to be neither, a bright thrill of amusement trailing down her spine as he offers her one of his shirts. It appears to be fairly new and -- _oh!_ Cassandra allows herself a little gasp as she takes the shirt into her hands. “I can’t believe it - is this actual silk, Bex?”

The nickname out of her mouth feels warm and sweet, like kissing with a mouthful of honey. Beckett chuckles again, replacing the rolling thunder once more. “It is. It was part of a disguise in France a few years ago. I don’t know why I held onto it.” His tone, however, says he knew _exactly_ why. Cass scoffs a little as she stands once more, carefully extracting herself and her wine glass from the confines of Beckett’s jacket. The air is much too chilly on her warmed skin - she presses the cup into his waiting hand, hurriedly shoving the spaghetti straps of her dress off to wiggle it down her body. Nudity before her peers doesn’t affect her anymore -- especially when that peer has seen her like this perhaps hundreds of times throughout the course of their relationship. Prudishness doesn’t befit her. However, it does befit Beckett, who casts his dark gaze away from her exposed skin.

Perhaps it was more for self-control’s sake than any modicum of respect for Cassandra’s modesty. She buttons up the shirt with one hand, kicking the still-wet dress away as it falls to her feet. The movement feels _familiar_ \-- the whole scene does, but what isn’t with Beckett? He has his way to make her think they’ve walked this path a thousand times, never once bored with the sights or sounds it has to offer. Oh, how she’d _missed_ him, and how freeing it is to admit it to herself. 

The only obstacle now is admitting it to him.

Now adorned in Beckett’s shirt, Cass turns a circle. “How do I look?” She retrieves her wine glass from his hand before it falls to the ground as his unshielded eyes trace over her. 

“Lovely.” He murmurs in a tone she could mistake as reverent. For a moment The Gangrel is lost in his thoughts, his sentence coming out as if it were barely strung together by the thinnest thread of remembrance. “You’ll stay for the day, I assume?”

Cassandra hadn’t considered that when she’d come, but now? Where else could she stay? She nods. “Of course.” She finishes her glass and sits it beside their sunglasses on the stack of books, feeling his eyes on her the whole way there and back as she stops to stand before him.

With his height, he looms over her almost comically, but it doesn’t stop the artist from reaching up and indulging herself as she tucks those stray hairs from earlier behind his ear. _Might as well_ , she thinks as he huffs under his breath, fingers curling down to his jaw to lead him down to her height. Their foreheads bump against one another’s as Cassandra’s world crests a rose tinted wave -- oh, how could she ever be angry with him? How could she ever wish harm upon him -- her beast, her scholar, her best friend? How did she go so long without him?

Questions she doesn’t ask. Questions Beckett already knows the answer to. 

Cassandra speaks against his lips in a sweet whisper, lips stained with AB-. “I missed you, Beckett.” Her eyes flick to his for only a moment before their lips connect -- a tentative, chaste thing, befitting neither of their clans, but the _sweetest_ thing she’s tasted in all her life.

There’s another kiss following that, then another -- the world has stopped for their benefit, it seems, as their lips part and meet chastely over and over for what could have been an eternity. Oh, Cass could spend her unlife kissing Beckett, she swears it. The scholar in question twists a curl of her drying hair around his finger as he rests his hand on her neck, a laugh under his tongue as he speaks.

“I missed you, too, Cassandra.”

Suddenly, the rain doesn’t seem quite so bad as her Gangrel pulls her into his arms, unbound by the stuffy awkwardness that had consumed them when she entered the warehouse. Again freed from the ache of fourteen years, Cassandra laughs into Beckett’s neck -- perhaps by his side once more, she could learn to like New Year’s Eve again.


End file.
